Global levels of steel scrap prices remained bullish last week with major consuming regions including Turkey, SEA, Japan and China saw substantial increase in transaction prices. As usual different markets adjusted to a big band of CFR prices ranging from USD 345 per tonne to SD 385 per tonne.
Scrap prices have mostly buoyed by the rising prices of steelmaking raw materials such as iron ore, coking coal and scrap although the demand for finished products remains weak.
Bad weather in US, Europe and CIS countries has also led to constrained availability of steel scrap resulting in upward push in scrap prices.
As per reports, Japanese steel mills hiked their purchase price by about JPY 500 per tonne last week.
The demand of steel scarp from Turkish mills improved further last week on higher billet prices and as a result sellers pushed up prices by USD 5 per tonne to USD 10 per tonne to reach USD 350 per tonne CFR for HMS 80:20. However, the buyers seem to be far away from the prices being offered by US sellers.
Scrap prices in SEA continued to increase last week and some US cargo offers were reported for HMS 80:20 were reported in the range of USD 375 per tonne to USD 395 per tonne.
Market players are hopeful of seeing USD 400 per tonne CFR levels in this week in some of the better paying markets.